cost benefits

How to best control resistance is a controversial matter. Existing recommendations do not always agree and some recommendations are conflicting. One clear example is the key components of the Swedish intervention mentioned in Maya's recent post—isolation and contact tracing. In this specific study, children were isolated from day-care, sometimes up to a year.

When a physician decides what to prescribe a patient, the expectation that antibiotic treatment will provide some benefit to the patient often outweighs the concern that this use will contribute to the shared problem of antibiotic resistance.